How can you ensure smooth and error-free deployment?

Part of the "preparation" step I like to do is duplicate the "Production" environment and actually "do" the deployment against the target environment. This reveals any issues/problems that might have gone unnoticed until the deployment and lets you mitigate those issues without effecting the Production environment. In a cloud-based environment, this should be a very straight forward exercise and well worth the effort.

Aqui, incorporar testes automatizados na esteira de CI/CD possibilita a execução rápida e consistente de testes, identificando potenciais problemas antes mesmo da implantação. A análise de cobertura desses testes oferece uma visão abrangente das áreas testadas, garantindo uma ampla cobertura funcional e reduzindo o risco de regressões não detectadas. Além disso, a verificação de código malicioso e/ou vulnerável durante os testes fortalece a segurança do software, prevenindo possíveis ameaças. Essa abordagem abrangente não apenas assegura a qualidade do software, mas também promove uma implantação tranquila ao mitigar riscos e garantir que o software atenda não apenas aos padrões de qualidade e às necessidades e expectativas do usuário.

Automation is crucial in being able to deliver error free deployments. As a general rule, the less manual steps you have in your deployment process the less errors are going to be introduced. If manual changes are necessary, try to keep them in one place or configuration file so that if things go wrong you know exactly where to look. This can be done even when deploying across different environments. This will not only keep your clients happy, but will also allow you to spend less time fighting bad deployments and more time on development.

Monitoring and alerts can help identify issues, especially after deployments. However, there are better ways to automatically revert faulty deployments without requiring manual intervention. Furthermore, not all faulty deployments are accompanied by an error increment. Sometimes, the issue only affects business metrics while all application system metrics appear fine. For instance, the order rate on an e-commerce platform may start to decline compared to the previous week's figure after a deployment. In such cases, alerts on business metrics can come to the rescue. We can attach a few such guaranteed problematic alerts to the automated deployment process to trigger revert in case the alerts are activated during deployment.